


ghosts aren't real

by mosaicos



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, ghosts....., happy halloweenie, here's some matsuoka family pain, not really spoopy i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 09:19:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5086399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosaicos/pseuds/mosaicos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rin closes his eyes shut, tighter than before, and keeps his breath locked inside himself. 'Dad… Dad, help me… Dad…' He tries to hold on to the image of his father, strong and protective, a shield against the unknown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	ghosts aren't real

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mangemouth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangemouth/gifts).



Whispers.

The breeze stilled, silence befalling the path, leaves stopping. The breath that Toraichi took seemed like something stolen; a borrowed ounce of life. A turn of his head and a quick shuffle of feet presented him with the dreadful realisation that he was alone, but not _quite_. 

_They_ were whispering, murmuring hissed-out sounds, hurried and angered. 

There was nothing he could do but clutch the amulet in his pocket, given to him by his Auntie several weeks before. It dug sharply onto his palm, even as the whispering rose alarmingly in pitch. 

_Who's there?!_

Toraichi whirled and turned, tossed by and around, unable to find them. 

Until–it stopped. 

As loud as everything had become, just like that, it became silent again. Toraichi knew better, however, than to breathe out that borrowed breath of life, to give away his presence, to feel safe. Silence always followed before a storm, and this is one he had become so familiar with since before. 

His skin crawled, the faint markings of cold fingers on his back and neck, and with a scared gasp, Toraichi gave himself up.

R̖̺̮̯̮͔̥̰ͨ̉͐ͬ̑̇U̮̟͌ͤ̉͐̀́ͅN͖̠͎̤͎ͪ̃̓ͥ̋͆ͣ̓

Toraichi didn't need to hear it twice, the shrill scream in his ear, freezing his blood, making his heart push up his throat, enough to make him run–race the rest of the way down the path, through the houses in the neighbourhood and past winding alleys, terror clear in his eyes, feeling all the while like a demon was at his feet. 

When he reached home, Toraichi scrambled to the kitchen and up to his Auntie, sobbing incoherent words, the sweat on his skin cold. She had held him, pushed his hair back, and soothed him until his breathing calmed–until Toraichi could muster his words and turn them into tears of relief, because now he was _safe_. 

The amulet he had held on to, broken in two, right in the middle.

****

Toraichi had learned, since he came to live with Auntie, that there was something wrong with his family. The men died easily, called to sea and drowned there, as if they were some sort of possession for the ocean to hold on to. Her husband had been spared–a generous, old man she had married–but her brother, Toraichi's father, had not been so lucky. He had drowned, a freak accident, lost under the waves of an ocean too serene and too blue to be considered a threat. Her father, too, had died drown, his body never recovered, probably gray and stiff somewhere in the bottom of the ocean.

"Be careful, child," his Auntie would warn constantly, wary of the ocean herself. 

But despite this, Toraichi never wavered at the sight of the ocean. Something about it called to him, made him want to make it submissive under his hands. To swim, that's all Toraichi ever wanted to do. He would not drown in a pool, anyway. 

The curse does not spread that far.

****

One afternoon under the dwindling sun, Toraichi sat on the porch of the house, fussing over a watermelon to quench the heat of the day. He felt a little neglected, his Auntie's friend from down the street visiting, engaging the woman in hardy conversation. 

A gleam caught his eye.

It came from the shrine in the spacious room beside the one his Auntie and her friend were in. The one with the shrine for both his father and grandfather. It was a spacious room, with several artifacts and trinkets decorating its vast silence. 

“H̛i,̨” a voice floated from within.

Unconcerned, Toraichi got up to his feet, setting the watermelon slice down on the tray, and wandering down the hall to the room. The door was open to allow the wind in, but there was no wind at all.

“Hello?”

It seemed curious how dark the room was, even with the sun setting. It’s almost as if no light made it in through the open doors, and his shadow seemed weak and faint too, a disparity for that time of day. Toraichi paused, the cicadas loud behind him. 

“Wi͘ĺl͟ ҉y͢ou ̴c̀o̶m͡e ͘play͘?”

No other children lived in this house, Auntie not having any of her own. 

Curiosity may as well have killed the cat, but Toraichi was a brave kid, if nothing else at all. 

A foot raised, Toraichi stepped through the door frame–and paused. His hands turned into fists, a knot in his stomach filling him with dread as his mouth went dry. _Something is not right._ The cicadas stopped in their song. Frozen as he was on the spot, his eyes glared at his own shadow, wilting before him–

A child sat inside the shrine, pale legs and black hair, eyes fixed on Toraichi. 

The cicadas continued again, and Toraichi was reluctant to raise his gaze at his disappearing shadow to the child. 

It was pointing its finger at Toraichi, who finally found bearing enough to move fully into the room. He felt put off by the action, unnerved; but Toraichi was no coward, and he did not scare easily. If the ocean didn’t scare him, nothing else would.

“Who are you? Are you Auntie’s friend’s kid?”

“Will y͟o̴u̶ ͘co͏me҉ ̡p͘ĺa͜y̨?̷” it repeated, its mouth moving slowly.

“Who are you! How did you get in here!”

Because, before anything else, Toraichi was a rude child; brought up by pride and self-reliance, he was not one to back down so easily to things, or people, unknown. Loud sounds of scratching roared through the room, as the kid kept asking the same pointed question; as Toraichi refused to answer it directly before a response to his own.

It all came to a massive stop as the adults entered the room alarmed. The cicadas were back, the kid was gone, and Toraichi’s shadow was dark against the tatami mats.

Blinking, red eyes look up in surprise, at his Auntie.

“ _Cursed child._ ”

He hears his Auntie’s friend say under her breath.

****

Toraichi escapes the curse engulfing his family under blue waves and marries the only girl, Shinju Minami, he’s ever fallen for when he turns twenty, carrying his one year old son in his arms during the small ceremony and his wife rubbing reassurances to a second one, in her belly. 

Ghosts stopped trying to get his attention a while ago.

“What are you talking about?” Shinju would breathe into his ear, softly and reassuring. “Ghosts aren’t real.”

It worked a better charm than any amulet he ever had to carry with him.

****

Rin remembers very little of his father, but for short lapses of memories so precious he’s afraid of wearing them out over time. One of those pertains to watching cartoon specials with his father, late into the night (late for a six year old, at least), of folk tales and goblins that steal kids away, of tanuki that loop people around, of tengu that change the winds, of a demon that eats bad dreams. 

It was meant to be light-hearted and cheerful, a kids’ show, but Rin remembers it was his father who screamed the loudest when his mother walked in, turning on the lights. 

Gou couldn’t sleep alone for weeks, pressed to their mother’s bosom until she felt better about sleeping on her own, while Rin played brave and slept on his own, even as his eyes watered in fright, covering his head with a blanket, afraid of the horrible, morphing shadows in his room, of the chimed in request that came every night, _will you come play_?

Ghosts aren’t real; to think as much–as his mother put it–was silly and absurd.

****

_The pull of the water is different in the pool._

_The world is a whole lot clearer if he opens his eyes–if he stops and looks through his goggles, holds his breath and counts the tiles at the bottom._

_It should be safe here as opposed to the ocean._

_No turbulent currents, no smashing waves, no unknowns in the depths._

_Yet he sees them float by, ethereal and wisps of life, not quite swimming, not quite existing. It’s good that he isn’t breathing, because he can’t give himself away like this. Swimming shouldn’t be this complicated or this terrifying, but there’s nothing worse than feeling trapped and isolated, between the realm of life and death._

_When he surfaces again and hurries out the pool, there’s nothing but the clear aquamarine tiles and swimmers in other lanes, his coach telling him to get back on the pool._

__Get a hold of yourself, Matsuoka. Ghosts aren’t real. __

_He needs to believe that they aren’t real._

****

Rin’s dreams become polluted. 

At first they start innocent, quickly pulling a veil over his eyes and turning dark and murky. It’s hard to move in his dream, he’s always sluggish. His limbs don’t respond to him, and he always feels like he’s drowning. It’s hard to breathe, and he knows, he _knows_ he will die, he will sink further down to the depths of the ocean, where nothing but death and loneliness will find him. 

Dark figures, blue and green and purple in hue, swim around him, turning and waiting, wisps of smoke when Rin tries to kick away from them. They’re nothing but ashen shadows tangible and caught in time. 

His shadow emerges, connected to his toes, and pushes him down, more and more, into the darkness of the unknown. 

He wakes up soaked in sweat, coughing out from tears, until his mother pulls him up and onto her arms, a soothing set of shushes, a hand through strands of dark, red hair. “Ghosts aren’t real,” she repeats into his skin, but even she sounds doubtful of the truth behind her words. Toraichi has been laid to rest, body undiscovered, deep in the ocean, not two days past.

****

They’re whispering in his ears again. Red eyes glaze over, the urge to cry strong, the funeral not two months ago but the wound still raw. Sleep has been hard to come by some nights, and whenever he has a nightmare like the ones that keep haunting him, Rin feels like he’s swam the whole ocean in one night and he’s exhausted to the core.

He’s about to fall into the same depths, until an hand on his shoulder levels him back to reality.

“Rin, are you okay?”

Sousuke’s concern is bizarre, no matter that they are best friends. Rin’s enthusiasm isn’t there today, but they nonetheless manage; clean up, homework, and heading back home. At least that was the plan, until Sousuke stops by the school’s gates. 

“What’s up?”

The downward curl of Sousuke’s mouth is concerning, but Rin heeds it no mind for now. It takes a while to get something out of Rin’s best friend, but after some more prying, he opens up.

“My parents say your family is cursed.”

****

_He’s always known that it’s not a gift. It’s not a reward, nor a blessing._

_It is a curse, like many have said before. He loathed to believe it, but as the only remaining male heir of the Matsuoka name, it clawed its way onto his skin and held on tight, waiting and biding its time, whispering multiple lies in his ear from time to time, urging him to come and play, _soon_ , without a promise for escape, without a promise for anything at all. _

_It would start with dreams and unfold into waking nightmares, silhouettes taking shape and beckoning,_ one more, one more.

****

“Ehhh? What nonsense is that! Does your family seriously believe in stupid things like ghosts and demons? It’s stupid, Sousuke!”

Rin doesn’t realise that Sousuke’s family believe in the supernatural and such things meant something more than being ‘silly’ and ‘superstitious.’ It meant a lot more would be broken for the sake of keeping the Yamazaki’s only son safe.

“It’s not true, then?”

Sousuke, however, sounds wary. For however much he would complain about his parents’ need to stick to what’s traditional, to keep the way of their family, this is something that even he holds on to.

Rin, for his part, doesn’t know how to answer the question.

He stops a moment and tries to get the right answer out; of the multiple nightmares he’s had, of the spectres he thinks he sees in the water, of the whispering, of the cold, vice grips around his neck, around his ankles when he swims, of the weight on his back that is more than his bag full of books.

So, instead of a rebuke as usual, Rin’s reply is nervous. He can trust Sousuke, more than anyone else.

“–w-why, why do your parents say my family is cursed?”

It’s like digging the dead from its grave, except his father was never buried on land.

“Your dad died drowned, didn’t he? And your grandfather, and great grandfather. My mother says of all the families who have lost someone to the ocean, your family has a name on the list. You’re the only one left, aren’t you? A Matsuoka boy. Rin, is it true? Is your family cursed? Will Gou be okay?”

Sousuke’s worry and concern come as questions that hit too close to home. Rin wants to shout to his best friend, tell him off for bringing such statistics up, for making his heart race panicked, as he thinks the whispers pick up in his ears.

Instead, though, Rin laughs.

“What are you talking about, Sousuke,” it’s hard to keep himself from doubling over from laughter. “Ghosts _aren’t_ real!”

And with Sousuke’s relieved sigh and small smile, the whispering _stops_.

****

The dreams stop, too.

****

_On the day Toraichi sees the last of the sun, the ocean is a dark, dark green. There is no sound, no whip of the wind against the boat’s sides; just the waves, the crash of foam onto the railings, the spray so white it almost seems like long fingers reaching for him–stretching to catch him off-guard._

_And it does._

_He swims, he tries, fighting against the current, sound returning to him under the pull of the ocean’s surface. Whispers and screams, pitching at him to let go and just_ sink _; about the uselessness in the situation of trying to save others. The ocean swallows the rest of the crew, even as Toraichi tries swimming towards them, more salt and water in his lungs than oxygen._

_They all drift away from him, clutches on his ankles dropping him down underwater with each crashing wave._

_The sun’s warmth doesn’t touch him anymore. The hull of the ship moans underwater, the storm muted the deeper he sinks. He doesn’t breathe anymore, and the darkness envelopes him, like a mother cradling their child, but a tight and possessive hold. Toraichi sees, blearily, through his red eyes, two dark cavities inside a skull–delusions as he holds on to his very last remaining breath._

_It escapes him as a bubble of air, a desperate call, _Shin–_ , Shinju, his wife–his _kids _._

_And then it finally engulfs him, a bitter mask of skeletal design, screeching into his face, black, murky, and tormenting, dragging him deep into the ocean to an eternal tomb, where no one dares go; where no one will find him, nor the rest._

****

Rin wakes up with a start, on his 15th birthday, 2:45 A.M. on the dot. 

A chill runs through him.

He’s dreamt of his father again. –the whispers return, quietly, until the sound of the moving door knob drowns it out. 

–did it follow him all the way from Japan, to Australia?–

The door knob’s movement stops, but then the door creeps open, a whining sound on its hinges.

Rin closes his eyes shut, tighter than before, and keeps his breath locked inside himself. _Dad… Dad, help me… Dad…_ He tries to hold on to the image of his father, strong and protective, a shield against the unknown. 

Lori finds him a bit before dawn, crawled up onto the kitchen counter, sobbing into his knees, the nightmare having shook Rin to his bones. 

“Darling, oh, darling,” she coos, approaching him in her sleepwear. “What’s the matter, Rin?”

He tries to explain, as best as he can, without sounding absolutely crazy about the experience, and ultimately relying on telling her he had a nightmare so terrible he thought it was real. Lori helps him wash his face and prepares him something for his empty stomach, soothing rubs over his back, circling and circling, a mother’s touch in a foreign land.

“Are they… real?”

Ghosts, he means, and Lori smiles.

“Of course not, only if you let them be real.”

****

Perhaps, though, the reality of the situation is that he envies that Makoto can so openly be afraid of his fears, believing them as truths. Rin wishes to do the same, bolstering onto his courage with everything he’s got, reminding himself–alongside everything else he dreams of–that ghosts are _not_ real. It keeps the nightmares at bay, it keeps the whispers away, it keeps the shadows to their respective lines of territory. 

He doesn’t see ghosts underwater anymore.

–but he wonders what it is that Makoto sees, even now, years later, close to their graduation from high school. If Makoto experienced the same as Rin, would it make everything real? Would it mean that it’s not just his family, but a general circumstance? 

It’s easy to find out that Makoto doesn’t see ghosts, so much as fears losing those he loves to the ocean. It’s equally scary, without a doubt, but it’s not a lump of mass that hovers over him at all times. 

Rin _is_ envious. He wishes it were that easy for him, too. 

“What.. what do you mean by _ghosts_ in the pool, Rin…?” Makoto asks nervously, rephrasing the redhead’s question. There’s no reason he shouldn’t.

Rin smiles, content that at least the same is not tormenting someone else he cares for. Perhaps, if this is his to bear, whatever curse runs through the Matsuoka name, he should face it much like his father did; unafraid and bravely. 

“Ghosts? Nah, ghosts aren’t real, Makoto,” Rin says, a wide smile of sharp teeth. “And if you see one, call me ASAP. I’ll kick their ass for you.”

The comment makes some shadows flicker on the corner of his eye, but Rin doesn’t hesitate in his mirth, laughing at Makoto’s sudden outburst of why Rin should bring up something so scary like that without warning.

****

_He may not have realised, the hours Shinju spent, tangling and untangling his hair while he slept. A mother knows best, and in her want to remain strong on her stance about the inability for ghosts and the unknown to exist, she really couldn’t deny the knowledge that whatever haunted her late husband haunts her son now, too._

_Shinju is raising two children on her own; two brave, wonderful children, all on her own. It’s easy to frame herself and live in the past, see her husband in her son’s eyes; see him in her daughter’s personality, but she knows she needs to work on moving forward._

_Rin clutches at her shirt, miserable in his sleep, even as Gou hugs her brother around his back._

_They all miss Toraichi. Their loss has become a tragedy, a rupture in their family, a source for more rumors about their supposed cursed family. Sometimes, she even thinks he hears her calling for her, as if his last words had been her name. But wistful thinking doesn’t come without a price, and the last thing she wants is to invite anything that would make this harder than what it already is._

_“Ma…”_

_The faint sob in the dark returns her to the present, looking down at her sleeping children. She runs her hand through Rin’s long hair until the creases in his brow disappear._

_Ghosts are not real; if they were, Toraichi would have come back to them a long time ago._

****

When Rin meets Haru, a lot shifts into place.

–even with Haru’s annoying, weird talk about the water being a pure, sentient being, it makes Rin feel more confident about himself, about his dreams, about what the water means, about his father’s death at the bottom of the sea. It sounds wrong in that context, which he realises, but he understands himself. There really is nothing to fear about water itself nor the pool nor the ocean. It’s what one makes of it. Curses and ghosts aren’t real, only however much one wants something to be.

Just like Haru makes a point of giving the pool a form, a shape, a personality of sorts, Rin can also use it to his own vantage. It’s not easy, but it’s surprisingly helpful.

When he’s with his team, he doesn’t dream horrible nightmares. When he’s with his team, when he swims, he feels closest to his dad. 

“Haru–”

It’s late one afternoon, after their Olympic team trials. Haru is the quickest to exit the area, unsurprisingly, ready to head out for his well-earned mackerel dinner. They both did make it through to the next round, afterall. The Japanese team’s Olympic jacket feels heavy on his shoulders, but it’s the best kind of unwelcomed weight Rin’s felt in a while. 

Haru, of course, stops at his name, and turns back to Rin in expectant silence. 

Rin, for his part, smiles wickedly wide, a suspicious dampness on his eyes.

“We made it.”

Haru’s response is so unexpected and abstract that it really doesn’t surprise Rin.

“I guess it’s good to stop chasing after ghosts, and finally set ourselves to real goals.”

Which, with everyone that’s gone on, makes Rin laugh, honest and carefree. Haru makes a face, unconcerned by this sudden show of giddiness, and making his best to escape the situation before–… before Rin catches up to him, throwing an arm around his friend’s shoulder, and walking out of the natatorium like this. 

Rin misses it, a smoky, dark image slinking from the edge of the pool and back inside the depths of the water, its wail unheard under the deep layer of chlorinated water.

****

If Rin had to, he would have a hard time pinpointing the exact moment when it all started fading into the background. He never got to quite get a grasp on the situation, on why this curse was placed upon his family, or why it was happen, much less how to be freed of it once and for all.

All he knows is that everything’s better. It’s been a year since the dreadful inklings of the unknown reaching out for him.

“Will these flowers be okay?”

“I don’t think dad will mind.”

It’s better now, the idea of whatever the future may hold. He may not know for sure, but it’s helpful to have family that supports him and friends worth their weight in gold. As gold as the medal around Gou’s neck, from Rin’s Olympic trials two months ago. He would have mailed it, but he really wanted to show it in person.

For today marks the eleventh year anniversary of Toraichi Matsuoka’s death at sea. 

Gou and Rin hike up the hill up to the shrine facing the ocean, and Rin smiles, at the form of their mother standing before the tomb, beautiful in a blue dress, billowing with the morning breeze. He helps Gou keep her footing, urging her forward in front of himself, a hand on her back, as he carries the daffodils carefully in the other. 

When they reach their mother, Gou gets down on her haunches and puts her hands together in prayer, over the incense their mother lit earlier. Rin stands between the two of them, now a head taller than his mother, and presses a kiss to her cheek; passing the flowers over to her, he pretends not to notice how she dries the tears from her eyes with the back of her hands. 

“You alright, mum?”

“Of course, darling,” is her reply, and Rin expected it, because it’s more telling that she leans against him, an arm around his waist. Rin returns the favour, an arm around her shoulders. His eyes settle on the tomb, and he doesn’t know what to say. It feels like all too much, and like his father already knows it all. Curse or not, Rin wasn't going to let it dictate his life. He's sure his father didn't let it. Rin does what he imagines would be normal, between himself and Toraichi, if he had lived to this date. Rin presses a fist onto the cold, hard slate of stone, like he always does, and then wraps his arm around a standing Gou, who looks up at him with _such_ pride in her eyes. 

“Time to go home?”

Rin drops his arm from around Gou, as his sister turns to embrace their mother. 

“Brother promised to help prepare lunch.”

“–it’ll be so spicy you’ll cry, Gou.”

Gou huffs, and Rin lets go of his mother, to give way to moving down the path. He ruffles Gou’s hair and offers their mother his arm for support.

“Let’s go home.”

If he tries hard enough, he could probably make out the willowy consistency of smoke by the grave, strong build and familiar face, looking back at them. But, perhaps, it’s all his imagination. After all, ghosts are not real.


End file.
